Overduehttp://booklikes.com/photo/crop/50/50/upload/avatar/d/7/azure_d7c901d222ffa229627f0cb70be80c8a.jpgOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com2019-02-22T15:13:44+00:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/rssreview: The World is Silent or Not Listening As They Self Destruct2014-07-15T00:36:00+01:002014-07-15T00:36:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/929900/the-world-is-silent-or-not-listening-as-they-self-destructOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
Half a Yellow Sun has shed a scorching light on "the dark continent of Africa. The 47or so countries, have always seemed to be 6 or in a particularly bad years, 9 countries. I just checked; it is second to Asia in size and population. Europe is much smaller in size and population, yet takes up most the American interest (except when it comes to diamonds and other raw materials).

I went to an affluent suburban high school from 1966-1970, the time when the novel is set and I never knew, until reading this devastating novel that the Biafrans were Nigerians trying to separate from Nigeria. The public was bombarded with malnourished children with bloated stomachs ,"Biafra Babies". I believed that they were starving and dying because of drought and bad farming techniques. I don't remember hearing about a revolution .

Adichie's novel focuses on the upper class. The main characters are all well educated and living affluent lives. Olanna and Kainene are twins but not identical. Olanna becomes involved with an intellectual revolutionary. Though they fight for equality and freedom they have a servant and foreign luxury cars. Kainene, a successful financier, is in a relationship with a white British author who has come Nigeria because of his love of ancient pots.

Half a Yellow Sun begins when Nigeria is united and the well to do have European educations, multiple houses, imported whiskey and bank accounts. There are servants , chauffeurs and bribes. The poor are poor, but live with dignity and local food.

Once the revolution begins, the one I never heard of, life changes for all Nigerians. Adichie tells the story of war: battle, destruction, starvation, and degradation. The Biafra babies, which I do remember, lived short lives of innocence. The soldiers and conscripted teens are starved, injured and allowed and even encouraged to rape. Many of the demeaned women die during their attacks or commit suicide after. The young men, often 13 or 14 years old who commit these atrocities are never the same either.

You can't find Biafra on the map. The uprising lasted less than three years. Adichie, who was not born at the time has used her parents's memories , her family's memories and other first hand sources to show the destruction which disorganized war and corruption causes. The British author, Richard, Kainene 's lover, who throws his lot with the Igbo revolutionaries tries to write a book ,"The World Was Silent While We Died."

I'm sure history buffs know this story. If you are like me, one who didn't study Nigeria, you will be surprised by the wealth, the cosmopolitan life style, the corruption of the revolution and the fact that the "civilized world", the U.S., Europe and China basically did nothing while these atrocities spun out of control.

If you're not interested in the war, there is also sisterly love, Baby love, romantic love, lust, loyalty and disloyalty, fashion, food and life under Half a Yellow Sun. This novel is not for the faint of heart or the beach reader. It is for a serious reader who appreciates excellent prose and is willing to take an uncomfortable journey to the past, to a country which 40 years later is just as unstable. The world is still silent.

]]>
text: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner2014-06-11T02:20:00+01:002014-06-11T02:20:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/902152/guess-who-s-coming-to-dinnerOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
The Dinner is a fascinating, but creepy novel which takes place in Holland. The Diary of Anne Frank also is set here and there are references to it and the the Frank dinner. Two brothers, Serge and Paul Lohman, along with their wives, Babette and Claire, meet in an ostentatious restaurant to break bread and share confidences that no families should ever have to share. The waiter brings course after course which delays the meat of their crisis. The flowing wine and sharp utensils pierce civilities.

Paul, the unreliable narrator is off his medication. He is a burnt out teacher who has been on leave for fourteen years. Paul's son, Michel is his spitting image. His successful brother, Serge, is ready to throw away his political aspirations to destroy and save his son, Rick. Although Serge is described as boorish, he seems to be the only diner with manners and scruples. Babette and Claire are willing to sacrifice their sons to assure that they do not get their just desserts.

The Dinner is a formal affair. The expensive food and wine do not feed the family. It is merely a contrivance to bring out the worst in this family which seems to have been raised by wolves.

This is a very dysfunctional family. All of the money, power and connections can never make them happy, though they may grin like hyenas. As I read it, I knew that I was being sucked in down a dirty drain. No matter how hot the water or strong the detergent, these dinner plates were stained.

]]>
text2014-05-25T15:36:00+01:002014-05-25T15:36:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/890862/postOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
It begins like Silas Marner. A curmudgeon, A. J., looses his wealth, an original book of Poe's. It is replaced with an adorable toddler. From there, A, J., the detached widower, begins to socialize and the world is righted. Of course, since A. J. is a book seller, his life revolves around books. This should be appealing.

This book is fine for a beach read or something right before bed when your attention waning. Because there are so many literary references and strokes for being literate, the reader may enjoy a short stay on an imagined island, Alice, where all of the police take an evening off once a month to discuss detective mysteries . Bi racial relationships are mentioned like a dress color and dropped like a napkin. Somehow, A.J.'s friends are all literary and they all extoll literature. Their lives turn out like plots from books you've, or at least , I've, passed over. I read A Storied Life of A. J. Fikry quickly, maybe because I knew what was coming.
]]>
review: A Picture Taken, A Story Told2014-05-16T02:13:00+01:002014-05-16T02:13:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/883664/a-picture-taken-a-story-toldOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com

Mary Coin, a novel by Marisa Silver, is one of my favorite novels. Silver takes base elements like poverty, homelessness,dust storms and love and transforms them into a valued amalgam.

Mary is part Cherokee, all Okie and tough.. Her claim to fame as a child is a newspaper picture of her grandfather, an accused murderer, who walks into a burning building rather than face the authorities. Mary learns many lessons from her mother, but the greatest is how to build a foundation. Silver takes us in Mary's beat up truck through field after field, watching her fill the bread baskets of America as she and her children share husks of corn and scavenge for fallen birds. Yet Mary holds her children tight as she remembers her mother's grief when Mary's younger sister died.

Not only does Silver create a noble family, the penniless Coins, but she also creates a wealthy dynasty, the Dodges. Their orange groves finance the building of their homes, but do not sustain their shelters for the dust ups in family life. Walker Dodge is a descendant and a social historian. He searches through pieces of waste, old broken things, discarded pictures, scarred furniture trying to find the past and tell its story and his story. He averts his eyes as his daughter, Alice, starves for his affection after his family breaks apart.

Lastly, Silver shows us a photographer, Vera Dare, who is able to recognize strength, love and harshness as she takes the picture of Mary Coin, and shows it to the world. Her photo is so expressive and impressive that no one can dare look away. Vera, stricken with polio as a child learns to walk with a limp, but develops a keen eye. She poses her subject so that the truth is seen by everyone who looks on her "Mary's" face. Although Vera's subject is clearly maternal, Vera, herself is more ambitious than motherly. Vera subjects her own children to foster care so that she can show the dismantling of American life.

All in all, Silver tells three great stories which are melded into one. Her prose are crafted masterfully which add to the strength of this novel. I truly felt the hunger of the Coins, the Dodges and the Dares. I saw each of these families through different lenses and from many angles. I also followed the characters as they tried to dodge their realities. Marisa Silver is more a magician than an "alchemist" because this book is golden!

]]>
text: The Book Thief May Steal Your Heart.2014-05-07T02:30:00+01:002014-05-07T02:30:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/876208/the-book-thief-may-steal-your-heartOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
Death is the narrator. He is omnipresent, omniscient, the great equalizer, most feared and a great relief to many. The fuehrer, Hitler, was the "leader" or "guide". He guided the Nazis to commit heinous crimes and led his countrymen into starvation, degradation, conflagration and despair. We usually read about the horrors that the Jews, the Gypsies, the gays, the communists, the handicapped and other undesirables endured and succombed to.

The Book Thief travels down a different road. It highlights the experiences of a young German girl, Liesel, in a town outside of Munich. She is robbed of her father because of his political actions. Her mother is alienated and impoverished because of his affiliations. Liesel watches her brother die and is abandoned on the same day. Liesel is given to Hans and Rosa, total strangers. They are able to offer the destitute orphan: thin pea soup, quiet encouragement, loud routine and true compassion. Their neighbors, like Scout Finch's (To Kill a Mockingbird ), like yours and mine , are interesting characters who both cause and share pain. She lives on Hummel Street (Heaven Street) which is decidedly on the wrong side of the tracks. The houses are so small and the families so poor, that the children spend their free time outside playing soccer and filching food . Liesel also steals books. Though she can't read when she begins this journey, she learns. This activity sets her free. In fact, Words, is treated as a character. Words become her friend. The words she reads transport her. The words she reads out loud during bombing strikes, soothe her neighbors. They also become a commodity which she trades for coffee.and offers as solace for a neighbor in mourning. Words are hurled, fly, slice, cut, and feed. They become a window for the poor Jew who doesn't ever see the sun, the stars or even a drop of rain or a bit of snow.

Hans and Rosa, her foster parents, are people before they are Germans. They hide Max, a Jew, in their basement. This is a capital offense. Like Boo Radley, Max is hidden away, pale, deprived of sun. Liesel brings him old newspapers and vibrant news from the soccer field and the school. Though Max is pennyless, and fragile, he inspires the German family to be their best selves which may be dangerous and reckless, but keeps them human and heroic. Hans, like Atticus, teaches his daughter to read, to think, to feel, and to be brave by example. Rosa has a clean house, a coarse tongue and a nourishing heart.

Yet death is around every corner. He is tired of greeting the millions of exterminated Jews and other victims of atrocity, broken and disfigured soldiers from around the world, and the Germans, held hostage by their Fuehrer and decimated by starvation, depression and bombings.

This is a satisfying novel because it appeals to the ears, the eyes, the stomach, the nose, the skin and most of all the heart. This is also historical fiction and reminds and teaches about the realities of WW II. Not all Germans were Nazis, yet they were all under the rule of the Reich and many suffered because of his maniacal tyranny.

Zusak's' language is both wonderful and annoying. He uses dynamic and nuanced metaphors and similes for everything, everything. It's overkill. (Not intended as a pun). This is probably called YA because the main character is a young girl. I think many will be sickened by the truths of war, but spell bound by a girl who has been robbed of her family and a carefree childhood, but who has learned to read and write and appreciate this gift.
]]>
review: What's the difference between taking a look and spying?2014-05-02T22:47:00+01:002014-05-02T22:47:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/871837/what-s-the-difference-between-taking-a-look-and-spyingOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com

There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.

—Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

I can't decide if The Dress Lodge is a 3 or 4 star novel. It was very effective in drawing the reader into the 19th century. But it was creepy. Many times I felt like a peeping Tom.

Gustine is a 15 year old potter's assistant by day and a prostitute in a rented dress by night. Her pimp and landlord, Wilky, has hired a one eyed hag, Eye, to keep her eye on Gustine and the dress. In turn, Gustine hires Whilky's daughter, Pink, to keep an eye on Gustine's "special" infant son and to keep Eye's eye off of the unnamed baby. Pink, whose eyes are lined in red from infection, prefers the company of her father's ferret, Mike. All of this occurs in a boarded up, fetid rooming house which shelters about 30 of Sunderland's poor. Fos, short for phosphorescent, like her decaying jaw from the phosphorus used in painting matchsticks , brings cholera into this shelter . This is just the beginning of the horrors. Remember, the cholera epidemic starts slowly, but soon speeds through house after house, town after town and then country after country. Livng conditions, misunderstandings about how disease is dispersed along with superstitions and cultural rites, like wakes, are accurately shown.

Holman also lets us see how the other half lives. Their homes are of course larger, heated, cleaned and attended to, by workers a step or two higher than Gustine. Dr. Henry Chiver, suffers because of a scandal, but has a home with servants, bottles of wine and money in his pocket. Yet, doctors need cadavers to study. What better place to find them them, but in the slums and grave yards of the poor. It may seem cold hearted and sinister to the bereaved, but science is more important, isn't it? Yet the poor, illiterate and fallen (prostitutes, pimps,etc.) believe that their dead deserve peace in a final resting place.

The creepy part is when Holman takes us along to dinner, whether it be a hardened piece of bread, a fish scrap, a bit of candy or a picnic lunch of chicken and wine. She steers us through the toilet pails which contain urine for washing and the waste slop which is saved in pails. We watch as Gustine, the dress lodger, meets men and is used by them in a corner, against a rock and in a chair next to her infant son. Chiver yearns for Gustine's baby because his heart is visible , for Gustine because her heart is strong and true and because Chiver knows that he is heartless. Why is this creepy? I just felt that I was privy to too much. I tasted the hunger, felt the cold, the heat and heard the silent cries of the disturbed dead. The smell of the sick, the unwashed, the human waste was pervasive . The blindness and lack of feeling by the healers, the doctors, is apparent to lowest class.

Watching Gustine, a single mother, juggling two jobs in order to care for her son, though she has no hopes or goals for herself was voyeuristic and uncomfortable because I read it while sitting on a soft couch while munching on a cookie, safe and warm as it rained outside.

]]>
review: Hair (Kinky) Today, Gone Tomorrow.2014-04-20T21:20:00+01:002014-04-20T21:20:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/859637/hair-kinky-today-gone-tomorrowOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
Americanah is the dream of poor people all over the world. There the streets are paved with gold. Education is free and of high quality. How many poor and oppressed have given up family, all their cash and belongings, their language, culture and identity, and even their names to travel in steerage, illegally stowed in trucks, in caskets, over hidden paths through the desert, rafts in open seas and on student visas, etc. just to be Americanah. If these immigrants are"lucky" they stay and build the U. S. If they are unlucky, they remain hidden in the shadows or are deported, with nothing but the scars of their dreams which have exploded.

Adichie, herself a Nigerian immigrant, has written beautifully and critically about the reality for those without working papers. The travails of finding employment and apartments without a driver's license and a"history" are arduous and dangerous. She opens a window and let's us see that usually the streets are narrow alleys which lead to cramped apartments. There's a reason that rice is so popular. Women, sometimes, are driven into the sex trade in order to buy that rice. She also shows us that hair, like "Hair" comes in all shapes and varieties, but "imprisons" women, especially women of African descent. Hair can be a stepping stone to acceptance in the U S. It can also be a sign of exotica. It can also seem to be a disfigurement , a lack of acceptance by others and by one's self.

Adichie's commentary on race, class, African and African-American pride in Obama's election in 2008, big business and corrupt politics, and the erosion of commitment in marriage in both the U. S. and Nigeria is both accurate and clever. She accurately observes that foreign born Blacks are treated more seriously by both Whites and Blacks in the U S and in Nigeria. Cell phones, bling and property are the international values of the wealthy and the wannabes. There is very little pride in craftsmanship, only in profit, worldwide. Women, Ifal , her aunt, and her friends in Nigeria and her boss, succeed when they are attached to rich men. Lastly, Obama's election was not only important for Americans, but for the entire world. It said that if the U S could get over the race thing, anything could happen.

These elements made me enjoy the experience. Who doesn't love a "rags to riches" story of an immigrant? The fact that she shows the poverty and the hollow 10 carat side of both countries is important. But, and I hate to say BUT, the "love story is a distraction. I hate to compare it to Wuthering Heights, because in many ways, that, moved me.

Ifel, the observant,attractive Nigerian, not only has dumped her childhood,Nigerian lover (Heathcliff) for no reason but also dumps her White and Black wealthy lovers (Linton x 2). In my book, Ifel just isn't Kathy and Obinze isn't Heathcliff. No, I haven't spoiled the end. Adiche did that on her own.

That said, I really enjoyed her writing, observations and commentary. The story, was just a story. I will read some of her earlier work and look forward to her new work.

]]>
text: Puss'n Boots?2014-04-11T23:49:00+01:002014-04-11T23:49:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/849924/puss-n-bootsOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
]]>
text: The Art of Forgery2014-04-09T03:17:00+01:002014-04-09T03:17:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/847041/the-art-of-forgeryOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.comCrime does pay, at least in art. Most artists, visual, musical, dramatic, literary, etc. do study other artists and incorporate techniques and do ideas, bits and pieces, reseen. This is how art works.

The Art Forger is not about that. It's about a painter who works for "Reproductions.com" to supplement her own art. She has a messy love life with an artist who adds his name to her work. This isn't forgery, it's robbery. Her next romance is with a collector who involves her in a conspiracy to commit fraud, to forge a Degas painting stolen from The Gardiner Musum.

Clair has lots of talent and no luck until she becomes a detective. I'm not a mystery fan, but this one was pretty easy to figure out.

I did like Shapiro's description of the layering, painting and discovery process, the first time. After the second or third time, I got the picture. The writing is not brilliant like that in Tartlett's The Golfinch and the detective work was not intricate or colorful like Atkinson's Jackson Brodie Series nor effecting like Jess Walter's Citizen Vince. This is a quick read, a painting you might pick up in department store or Musak, if you will.

]]>
text: Middlemarch: An explosion of tradition or why and how we marry2014-04-05T01:56:00+01:002014-04-05T01:56:00+01:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/842501/middlemarch-an-explosion-of-tradition-or-why-and-how-we-marryOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com

Middlemarch is perfect. I loved it! Why can't I write a review? Well, for one thing, every time I look back, I replay the whole wonderful experience. I think back to St Theresa in the prelude. I giggle about Dorothea, a wannabe martyr, being pegged by her younger, sage, sister. as Dodo, because she, Dodo, "enjoys giving up." I love the Garth's and Vincy's middle class families which connect and disconnect as families usually do. Rosamond is the ultimate "material girl" with a good temper, but very indulged. The rectors, Casabon and Bulstode are as despicable as Mr. Farebrother is giving,fair and Christian. The doctors, including arrogant and dedicated Lydegate, are of course, concerned with treatment, kickback from pharmaceuticals, and reputation. Will Ladislaw is a devoted hunk who is both artistic and artful, but is of questionable birth and lacks direction. He is a foil to Fred Vincy who is decidedly middle class, but barely graduates from clerical college, has no calling and literally can not write as well as a 9 year old.

Their community, Middlemarch, circa 1820, is very similar to the ours. There are the good, the bad, and the rich. Some of the rich, the Brooks orphans and their uncle, are quite wonderful . They are quirky and generous. In contrast, Casaubon is ridiculous, jealous and vengeful, while Bulstrode believes that wanting to be good is the same as being good. But I digress . This community includes the gentry, a middle class which is always struggling, but getting by, and an invisible lower class, which depends on the largesse of others .

Every time I think about this integrated group of characters and interweaving of plots of deceit and control, I stop and think of the perfect prose. I highlighted over 50 times. Eliot out Austened Austen with her witty, sometimes snide views of marriage, family and religion. You would think that a woman who had a married lover, was estranged from her own family and only married a few years before her own death to a man 20 years her junior, would not care that much about tradition or the institution of marriage. She did. She called marriage "a noose," but also a way to give direction to floundering Fred. In fact, marriage was mentioned in every chapter . I can't possibly select a few examples of Eliot's sparkling words, but believe me, Eliot's strong narrative voice and her characters' honest dialogue is remarkably modern and 19th century at the same time. It is clear, descriptive and poetry. I can't just revisit this novel, this town, without wanting to stay. I want Dorothea to befriend me and tell me the truth because she is a heroine who always speaks her mind. Middlemarch is far away and long ago, and home.

]]>
review: A Carpet Ride without the Magic2014-03-15T15:03:00+00:002014-03-15T15:03:00+00:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/825353/a-carpet-ride-without-the-magicOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com

Picture the lower East Side, in the late 1890's. (You have to picture it. Wecker describes each tenement room as tiny and bare. She neglects any other details.) There are small crowded enclaves of Jews, Syrians, Poles, Russians and others, layered on top of each other and crammed next to each other, but separate. Each group maintains their own language, religions foods, cultures, and fantasies.

The golum, a mythical animated lump of clay, arrives from Poland, unaccompanied. Her master dies in steerage. Around the corner, a Syrian jinni is released from his vase, a vessel, which has bound Ahmad for a thousand years. Coincidentally they each are found by humane humans who accept their fantastic powers and their even more fantastic stories.

In literature you have to suspend rationality and just go along for the ride. The golum, Chava, is found by a rabbi who just brings her into his one bedroom apartment and let's her hide under the bed as he teaches his all male Hebrew classes. Ahmad hides in the tin smith's workshop and prowls the streets all night.

Neither jinnis nor golems sleep nor do they need to eat. Ahmad easily climbs into a socialite's second floor bedroom, bed and heart. The golum is able to hold down a job in a bakery, befriend a bakery worker, dance and marry. No one, not even her husband, notices that she is cold to the touch and has no heart or heart beat.

This unlikely pair, Chava and Ahmad, travel across the Atlantic and the even larger divide, the Lower East Side, to Park Aveue. The novel is set in the 1890's but seems like it is the present, devoid of cell phones. Sorry. This is not my great grandmother's Canal Street. This novel has lots of turns and twists, but does not transport me. I did not find the characters soaring and the writing is fine, but not magical.

]]>
review: Pass / Fail2014-02-25T04:00:00+00:002014-02-25T04:00:00+00:00http://Overdue.booklikes.com/post/802638/pass-failOverduehttp://Overdue.booklikes.com
This compact novel is as powerful, as unconventional and as good as Kate Chopin's best. Both Irene and Clare are Chicagoans light enough to pass. They grew up together, colored. It is the 20's and their worlds are changing, just not fast enough.

Irene marries a successful, decidedly black, doctor. Clare, orphaned at 16, runs away from her white relatives with a white man. Twelve years later, the two old friends serendipitously meet in a restaurant while passing.

This magnetic novel is about: prejudice, insecurity, control, desperation, marriage, and of course passing. I'm not sure which character, Irene or Clare, is more destructive and is more destroyed. Both are finely drawn, and belong to a minority. According to the characters, whites are less discerning and more easily fooled. African-Americans are able to detect their brethren and are more forgiving of their light skinned brothers when they choose to deceive. Neither route is easy for the African Americans in the 20's, nor is it easy now, almost 100 years later. (Barack Obama is half white and half black. Yet the world lauds his ascendency to the presidency of the most powerful White country in the world. Please don't get picky and say that Whites are in decline in the U S and China is more powerful.)

I read this in honor of Black History Month, but it is a valuable, moving and devastating novel for all time.
]]>